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A rocket ship built by Elon Musk's SpaceX company thundered away from Earth with two Americans on May 30, ushering in a new era in commercial space travel and putting the United States back in the business of launching astronauts into orbit from US soil for the first time in nearly a decade. NASA's Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken rode skyward aboard a sleek, white-and-black, bullet-shaped Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, lifting off at 3.22 pm from the same launch pad used to send the Apollo astronauts to the moon a half-century ago. Minutes later, they safely slipped into orbit. Let us take a look at some of the spectacular images from the historic launch:
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The mission unfolded amid the gloom of the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed over 100,000 Americans. (Reuters Photo)
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Two NASA astronauts on Sunday entered the International Space Station from SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft after a historic launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking the dawn of a new age in commercial space travel. (AP Photo)
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"Let's light this candle," Hurley said just before ignition, borrowing the words used by Alan Shepard on America's first human spaceflight, in 1961. (AP Photo)
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The flight also ended a nine-year launch drought for NASA, the longest such hiatus in its history. (Reuters Photo)
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Titusville: Spectators watch from a bridge in Titusville, Fla., as SpaceX Falcon 9 lifts off with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken in the Dragon crew capsule from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo)
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which is an independent agency for space research, aeronautics and related programmes in the US, confirmed the arrival of astronauts Bob Behnken (49) and Doug Hurley (53) at the ISS. (AP Photo) -
Ever since it retired the space shuttle in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian spaceships launched from Kazakhstan to take US astronauts to and from the space station. (AP Photo)
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A launch attempt on Wednesday was called off with less than 17 minutes to go in the countdown because of lightning. (AP Photo)
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On Saturday, stormy weather in Florida threatened another postponement for most of the day, but then the skies began to clear in the afternoon just in time. (Reuters Photo)
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Nine minutes after liftoff, the 260-foot rocket's first-stage booster landed, as designed, on a barge a few hundred miles off the Florida coast, to be reused on another flight. (AP Photo)
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Bridenstine pronounced it "just an amazing day." SpaceX controllers at Hawthorne, California, cheered and applauded wildly. (Reuters Photo)
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A count down clock is shown as SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken lifts off during NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US. (Reuters Photo)
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In the intervening years, NASA outsourced the job of designing and building its next generation of spaceships to SpaceX and Boeing, awarding them USD 7 billion in contracts in a public-private partnership aimed at driving down costs and spurring innovation. Boeing's spaceship, the Starliner capsule, is not expected to fly astronauts until early 2021. (Reuters Photo)
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President Donald Trump flew in for the launch attempt for the second time in four days. (Reuters Photo)
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Elon Musk receives a standing ovation during remarks after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US. (Reuters Photo)
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SpaceX CEO and owner Elon Musk celebrates after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. (Reuters Photo)
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Because of the coronavirus, the astronauts were kept in quasi-quarantine for more than two months before liftoff. (Reuters Photo)
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"I'm so proud of the people at NASA, all the people that worked together, public and private. When you see a sight like that it's incredible," Trump said after liftoff. (Reuters Photo)
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Despite NASA's insistence that the public stay safe by staying home, spectators gathered along beaches and roads hours in advance. (Reuters Photo)
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